Oral history interview with Guion Griffis Johnson, August 19, 1974
Subtitle: interview G-0029-1, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, interviewer; Frederickson, Mary E., interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Women historians; Education; Women in higher education; University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Institute for Research in Social Science; University of North Carolina (1793-1962)
Other titles: Interview G-0029-1, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Guion Griffis Johnson, August 19, 1974; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Guion Griffis Johnson was among the first generation of female professional historians and a pioneer of social history. Her book Ante-Bellum North Carolina provides a comprehensive study of how people maintained and sometimes traversed social divisions in this state. For this interview, she discusses the work she did for Dr. Howard Odum of the University of North Carolina Department of Sociology from 1923 until 1934. She lists the community activities she participated in during and after this period. While her husband, Guy Johnson, taught for the Institute for Research in Social Science, she copy edited issues of the  Social Forces journal, researched projects on St. Helena's Island and antebellum North Carolina, and worked toward a Ph.D. in sociology. When the workload became too cumbersome and tedious, she transferred to the history department to finish her Ph.D. She lost her job with the Institute in 1930 when the University cut costs by laying off married female academics. The interview ends with her description of how she continued to work without receiving wages before going back to Baylor College as a professor.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on July 21, 2008).

Interview participants: Guion Griffis Johnson, interviewee; Jacquelyn Hall, interviewer; Mary Frederickson, interviewer.

Duration: 01:00:11.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Steve Weiss.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 115.2 kilobytes, 111 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series G, Southern women, interview G-0029-1, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Joe Jaros. Original transcript: 26 p.

Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.